


calling home

by staccatz



Category: Hololive, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: Angst, F/F, Romance, Roommates, anyway, but not contrived i hope, i mean it's mostly ina-centric tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29455365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staccatz/pseuds/staccatz
Summary: The first time Ina caught it, she wasn’t even on the phone. She was working on something else entirely, something she’d whipped up quick for background practice one day, when it unwittingly revealed itself to her.That melancholy in Gura’s eyes.
Relationships: Gawr Gura/Ninomae Ina'nis, Gawr Gura/Ninomae Ina'nis/Watson Amelia, Gawr Gura/Watson Amelia (hololive), Ninomae Ina'nis/Watson Amelia (hololive)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 135





	calling home

The first time Ina caught it, she hadn't even been on the phone. She was working on something else entirely, something she’d whipped up quick for background practice one day, when it unwittingly revealed itself to her.

That melancholy in Gura’s eyes. 

It wasn’t there at first, and Ina knew because she loved studying people’s expressions, loved looking at eyes and ears and the twitch of one’s mouth, the way one’s hair framed their face, and fell around their shoulders. The way people carried themselves. Ina was a studier of the human form. An artist’s lens for an artist’s touch. She had just finished laying down the sketch, something simple and indulgent in shape and color before turning to her friend who she’d heard sneak into her room, who was currently peeking over her shoulder.

It wasn’t there at first when she made eye contact with Gura—her eyes were met only with the bubbly, curious gleam Ina was used to associating with the girl. Gura always looked at things like she wanted to feel them with her teeth to know their shape, looked at you like one might peruse cakes at a bakery. She was always interested. To an artist, that sort of personality was very appealing. 

She met her friend’s gaze with a soft smile. “Something caught your eye?”

“Yeah, you.” Gura took the opportunity to compliment naturally, the comfortable nature of expressing affection already having established itself months ago when they’d decided to move in with their brazen and equally flirtatious blonde cohort, and even longer before that when they’d first met. 

Ina’s smile widened as she returned the verbal tease. “But I must pale in comparison to what you see in the mirror every day, right?” 

Gura couldn’t help but laugh, blushing a bit. “Alright alright, you win miss flatterer. But also, that,” she added as she returned her attention to the digital painting on Ina’s screen. “Is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Ina replied, picking up her pen again. She figured the trees on the horizon could use a richer orange. “I haven’t painted like this in a while.”

Gura lugged her usual stool over from the side of Ina’s nightstand to make herself comfortable, careful not to knock anything over with her tail. She liked coming in to watch the artist work now and then, but she had to make sure she didn’t accidentally make a huge mess. Ina’s room was organized, but there were books piled up _everywhere_. And Gura liked reading, but if she had to shut up and stare at something for a while, she much preferred the canvas before her, opening up a fresh scene under her friend’s experienced touch. 

She loved activities where she could just shut off her brain and _feel_. The way Ina wound branches around foreign architecture, spaced out roads while nevertheless keeping everything within a stone’s throw—it felt deliberate in evoking a welcoming atmosphere, and Gura was certainly drawn in. “It looks homey,” she commented. 

“It is home,” the artist responded, simply. Easily.

“Ah.”

Her cursor blotted at an area as if to add a figure, but she quickly painted over it again. “I miss it sometimes. I haven’t been home in a long time.”

She mulled it over. Painted the figure. Erased it. Suggested a form, only to have it fade back into the woodwork. “Mm...nah,” Ina relented, finally. “A background is just a background, after all.”

She blinked, finally noticing she’d been talking to herself. “Gura?”

And then she saw it.

Well, for just a brief moment before it disappeared into the fabric of the shorter girl’s sleeves. “It’s pretty,” she said, wiping it away. Sniffed, before coughing to clear her throat, and it was gone. And then,

“Do you ever think of going home?”

But it _wasn’t_ gone, because the expression of interest Gura had managed to plaster back on her face held the weight of something more guarded now, and Ina noticed not because she was naturally attentive this time, but because the girl before her was never good at hiding these sorts of feelings in the first place. 

And because Ina cared about her, so of course she noticed that Gura’s voice had to navigate rocks to pose that question. 

But in the end, she didn’t know what to say. “I...well…”

Her phone started humming then, causing them both to jump a bit in their seats. Even though it was on vibrate, the buzzing felt cacophonous given the sudden thickness of the air in her room. Ina laughed, more to expel the tension that had gathered in her own chest than anything. “I’m sorry. Can I take this?” She glanced at the caller ID. “It’s from…” 

“Home,” Gura finished for her, smiling, but the corners of her eyes didn’t lift up to match. “Of course.” She got up, and at the same time, they heard the front door lock of their shared apartment jiggle. 

“I’m back!” The sound of their returning housemate’s dogs barking as well as a heavy bag clunking to the floor prematurely reached their ears, through the complex’s thin walls. “Oof…”

“I’ll go help her,” Gura said. 

And she left. 

Ina’s door clicked shut, and a few books toppled off the stack to the right of it before she looked back to her phone, sighing. 

She’d missed the call anyway.

—

There were a few moments afterwards where Ina just accepted isolation. Slowly, she started picking up the books that had fallen—these were ones she’d brought with her from years back, old books. Childhood books. 

And though they weren’t nearly as old as the one that had changed her life, Ina felt there was something timeless about them. She didn’t pay them much heed anymore, but they were all artifacts from her past that she’d gotten to bring with her, and she could touch them whenever she liked, still had to walk around them to dust parts of her shelves sometimes. Shelves that held other paraphernalia from an Ina much younger than herself.

How much of _it_ had she missed flashing through Gura’s eyes every time her housemate had come watch her draw? How many times had her bubbly, curious, always-interested gaze fallen on Ina’s past, pinned to her corkboard, littering her desk, and lining her walls with memories the priestess could still go back to? 

Ina rubbed her eyes, weary. She knew analytical people such as herself had a tendency to overthink, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of, well, _bewilderment_ that someone who prided herself on her attentiveness could miss something so fundamental, and had been so callous about it. All those nights she’d caught up with her family, with Gura within earshot. Unable to do the same.

The clatter of pans meeting kitchen tile interrupted her thoughts. _Ah, dinner…_ She checked the time, or at least attempted to. The sun had already set through her window, veiling her small wall clock in shadow. Ina had a habit of working deep into the evening hours and forgetting to turn on her lights.

She tapped her phone screen to life. 6:23 pm, and of course...the missed call.

The priestess shook her head. She had never been one to forego helping people when her assistance could be of use, and she figured staying in her room with her muddled feelings any longer was going to result in a lose-lose situation. Namely, one where she was hungry, restless, and oblivious of the other two potentially setting off the fire alarm until it was too late.

So when she dusted herself off and made her way cautiously to the kitchen, she was met with, unsurprisingly, two unstoppable forces squabbling over groceries. Thankfully, it seemed the storm clouds that had previously stiffened Gura’s demeanor were intimidated by the arrival of a _very_ bright and much more chaotic force of nature. 

Ina quickly took her place as the stabilizing corner of their trio. She glanced at the seemingly haphazardly-chosen foodstuffs laid out on the counter and decided that stir-fry made out of random ingredients had never hurt anyone, and so the three of them slipped into their usual routine. Their little mishaps here and there—Ina balking at the cucumbers Amelia was slicing length-wise, shrimps slipping out of Gura’s hands as she washed them—they were all interactions that Ina treasured from their day-to-day life, and she smiled as everything fell into place in the pan, held together by the comfort of their pre-established dynamic.

The atmosphere from her room had dissipated for now, as Gura leaned into Ina’s right side, practically salivating over the wok’s contents. 

She tossed the diced vegetables and meat a few more times. The chin of her other housemate made its way onto her left shoulder. “Hello,” Ina greeted with fondness, not feeling like explaining exactly why she was so grateful Ame had come back when she did.

“Hey,” Ame returned lazily, but her voice betrayed her exhaustion. Ame always had long days. Ina briefly considered whether it’d be weird to bring forth a tentacle just to give the blonde a pat on the head for her hard work, seeing as her hands were tied up, but she thought better of it. It was hard enough controlling her regular limbs as it was, with her sandwiched between the two girls. 

She shifted her position to get a better grip on the handle, and Ame’s chin stayed fixed on her shoulder, following her motions as she continued cooking. As Ame was a bit shorter than her, Ina realized she had to have been tiptoeing to do that, and she tried to hold back her laughter at the absurdity of it. She failed miserably when Gura wriggled in under her right arm to get closer to the stove, almost making her drop her spatula. 

The priestess shook with the sort of light, breathy laughter her thin frame often produced, and the two at her sides joined her, causing the wok to tremor in their shared mirth. Really, it was a wonder how the three of them ever got anything done, but to Ina, the feeling of whiling away the hours with these two goofballs—it wasn’t something she would trade for anything. 

So you could call it a bit of complacency, or perhaps cowardice even, why Ina didn’t bring up what transpired earlier with Gura for the rest of the evening. Instead, she quietly retired to her room right after dinner, closing her door firmly. 

Ame raised an eyebrow as she worked to set up a co-op game to play with Gura in the living room. Ina rarely shut her door completely—none of them did, save for changing and sleeping, or if they were going to be doing something loud, and everyone in the household knew Ina was neither loud nor slept at these hours. 

“What’s up with her?” she asked with only mild concern, but when Gura answered with “I think she’s gonna call home. Maybe she’s homesick,” that’s when Ame started listening. Less to her words, and more to the tone of the shorter girl’s remark. It was laced with an emotion she hadn’t heard Gura express in a long time. 

“Maybe she’s lonely,” Ame tested the waters.

“Maybe we all are.” Gura closed her eyes as the two waited for the game to boot up. Ame was someone she rarely felt the need to hide anything from, so she didn’t. 

The blonde jabbed her friend lightly in the side with her elbow, more to jostle her out of her funk than anything. “Then you’d better get ready for some Grade-A companionship here!” she laughed, quickly pressing Start and button mashing to attempt to choose her character before Gura.

“Hey! I’m not that desperate!” Gura retaliated, starting off a bicker-fest that was sure to result in countless unneeded pixelated deaths that night. But she was smiling again, a toothy, real smile, and that was all Ame needed to see. She turned to focus on the game after taking one more glance at Ina’s door, filing away the exchange to the back of her mind.

 _I’ll talk to her later_.

—

“Love you, mom. Bye-bye.” Ina waited for her mom to hang up, then flopped backwards onto her bed, throwing an arm over her eyes even though she’d never turned on the lights. She was tired. 

Chats with her family were always tiring, but they were at least enjoyable. Sometimes her older sister would be home as well, and those chats could go on for much longer as they caught up with each other. Ina had always been close to her sister, and kept in close contact with her parents too, but she herself hadn’t been home in a long while. 

First had come college, and during college, she found the book...and though AO-chan didn’t seem to pose too much of a threat...for now...she felt it was better to put some physical distance between herself and her family. To focus on work, she always said, but really, it was to make sure the girl who had suddenly obtained the power to control tentacles didn’t inadvertently hurt at least one set of people she cared about deeply. She did miss them dearly, but...it was a sacrifice she’d resolved to make.

The other set was a lifeline to her. Her two housemates were tougher than nails, and she couldn’t have asked for better companions. Truthfully, even if they hadn’t been as physically capable as they were, Ina would’ve still felt the tug to be with them, but then there would’ve been a lot more to worry about. 

Like how she was worrying about Gura right now. Her mind brought up melancholy, before it briefly wandered to the image of another pair of blue eyes reflecting fatigue. She worried about Amelia, too. 

There was a knock at her door, a light rapping. Ina blinked, removing her forearm from obscuring her vision and trying to reorient herself in the darkness. Then, a familiar voice. 

Amelia’s timing was always uncanny like that. “Ina?”

“Yes, Ame?” she replied hesitantly after debating for a moment whether to feign being asleep. She braced herself for an “Are you alright?”, and the ways she could deflect it without lying. But it didn’t come. Instead,

“Do you want to go out with me tomorrow?”

Ina’s mind blanked. She felt herself fluster, just a little. “Er, for what?” 

“Just want to spend time with my pretty, talented eldritch queen,” came in through the door. At once candid, earnest, and very, very playful. Ina giggled then sputtered, almost choking from doing so while lying down. “And because I want to pick up some books, and we all know Gura doesn’t read. She _definitely_ didn’t read any of the on-screen instructions in the game we were just playing,” she added, louder.

“Hey! You were just as bad!” came the muffled retort from the living room, and Ina grinned even though she knew no one was there to see it. Between the three of them, Gura actually read most eloquently, and she hardly believed Ame wanted to look at more literature after poring over case files day in and day out. Which meant she probably just wanted to get Ina out of the apartment, noticed she had something to get off her chest. 

Ina unclenched her jaw, exhaling a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She found this part of Amelia very endearing, and so she tried to will her smile through the doorway for the latter to feel, through her tone. “I’m only pretty talented?” she teased. 

“Very pretty, and very talented,” Ame affirmed without missing a beat, before chuckling in the same pleased, self-assured manner she always carried herself. 

Ina laughed too, and their feelings met through the distance. 

“Goodnight, Ame. See you tomorrow.”

—

“So, do you ever think of going home?” Ame started, and Ina immediately felt the shift from the lighthearted conversation they were having about the pros and cons of the existence of the _How to Draw Manga_ books they were thumbing through just a moment ago.

She swallowed. “Why do you ask?” 

Amelia hummed, still browsing the book she’d picked up in the used section of the general store they’d found themselves in that afternoon. Her eyes landed on some of the more risqué pages, and Ina marveled at her ability to simultaneously hold serious conversation and look at cartoon bosoms. Compared to her own slow, methodical way of approaching things, Amelia’s mind always seemed to be racing a mile a minute, sometimes running several parallel miles at once. 

She whistled, and Ina wasn’t sure if it was directed at the thighs she was flipping through or just serving as a preface for her answer. “Gura told me things got weird between you two yesterday.”

“Ah...well…”

Once again, Ina found herself at a loss for words.

Amelia finally closed the book, tucking it under her arm and turning to face her. Blue eyes patient and concerned.

“Well,” Ina hesitated, before deciding to turn the question back on her friend. “Do you?”

It was more out of wanting to get somewhere with this conversation than anything, but she’d still taken the easy way out. 

Ame tapped her chin thoughtfully, and Ina wondered if that was a weird question to ask a time traveler. “I mean, you can technically go back...anywhere, anytime, right?” 

“Right,” Amelia confirmed, but she left the original question unanswered, same as Ina. Noticing a throng of talkative teens headed for the aisle, she gestured for the two to keep walking through the store, so Ina followed. Their physical movement seemed to prompt time to start moving again in her mind, and Ina started feeling more at ease. 

They were passing through a quiet section stocked with a small collection of indoor plants when Ame paused to pick one up. It was small but leafy, robust. “Gura would like this, doncha think? She’s always going on about gardening and whatnot.” 

Ina hummed in agreement. “It kind of reminds me of her.”

Ame pat down the floofy leaves, smirking in skepticism, before holding it up in front of Ina. “Do you think she ever thinks of going home?”

Ina traced the edge of one of the leaves gingerly, sadly. “She looks like she does.”

“You look like you do, too.”

Ina stiffened. Despite how long she’d known the detective, it was still unsettling being read. “And what, you don’t?” she tried deflecting, weakly.

Ame closed her eyes. “I do.” Opened them again. “But you know,” she tapped the pot pointedly, “Everyone’s got a place they’re at right here and now, right?”

“I guess so,” Ina acquiesced. “Though there’s not many people in my life who have an option to say otherwise, besides you.” 

“Even I’m here, right here and now,” Ame insisted. Her words were starting to jumble like a mess in Ina’s mind. “I’m with you,” she put it more simply, smiling. The blonde placed her hand on the taller girl’s, which had been worriedly fiddling with a jagged, chewed-up leaf before stilling under Ame’s touch. 

“Thank you,” Ina whispered, leaving “I don’t want it any other way” unsaid. It was selfish to say binding words to a time traveler.

“But I’m also back home.”

The priestess tilted her head quizzically. “You’re in more than one place at once?”

“More than one time,” Ame corrected, “But that’s not really the point. The point is, we all are.”

She procured the book from earlier, waving it in front of Ina’s eyes. “After all, all of these that you’ve got in your room, they’re from what you call home, right?”

“A lot of them are,” Ina admitted. 

“So you had to have been home sometime. And in a way, you still are.”

Ina sighed. What Ame said was true, but it seemed to be a bit of an obtuse explanation. At least, it didn’t do much to quell the anxiousness in her heart. 

“But I still miss home sometimes,” she confessed. “And I’m sure Gura does, too. The only difference is,”

“That you can technically go back, and she can’t?” Ame finished, gently.

Ina nodded. _Their expressions_ , Ame thought, _are the same. Melancholy._ She shook her head, resolutely. “That’s where you’re a bit off.”

“Eh?”

“Only people like me can go back.” She tapped at the watch nestled inside her coat pocket. “And even then, not really.” Ame tugged the plant from Ina’s hands, softly set it back on the table. It’s like they never picked it up in the first place.

“If you’re just a little bit removed from a place, you could probably fit right back in without much of an issue. Like after taking a day trip. A week, even.”

She handed Ina the worn-out drawing book. “But given enough time, a lot will change.” She traced the binding of the paperback in Ina’s hands. “Both the place you call home, and you.”

Ina considered Ame’s words carefully. “For me, it takes a long time for things to change. I think it’s different for you two.”

“It’s true that time can pass differently for different people, but…” Ame paused thoughtfully. She picked up the plant again. “Say, do you remember when we all first met?”

Ina’s eyes twinkled. “Of course. It’s one of my fondest memories.” Some light returned to her expression, and Amelia was glad.

“And do you remember what Gura said, when she introduced herself?” she asked, anticipating it.

“‘It’s so boring down there!’” the two recalled in unison, laughing.

“Oh Gura,” Ina said, wiping tears from her eyes, reminiscing. “She was always a funny one. A real fish out of water.”

Amelia groaned at the pun, but she was beaming. “But then, so are we, right?”

“I don’t know Ame...I might be part _tako_ now, but you still look like a landlubber to me.”

The detective poked Ina in the cheek for that one, and the latter made no move to draw away, grinning. “What I _mean_ is,” she huffed, “Gura, she didn’t seem very interested in that place back then. That’s why she took her interest elsewhere, right?” 

Ina remembered the countless times Gura pulled up a chair when she was drawing, how quick she was to always meet Ame at the door when she got back, how she always made time out of her busy recording and streaming schedule just to...be with them. “Yes.”

“But still, I get it. Even if you’re not a fan of a place, even if it’s been years, it’s hard to know you can’t go back.” Amelia’s voice was more somber now, and Ina wondered if she, too, was adrift at sea. But then it firmed itself, unwavering. “But even if she could go back, even if _any of us_ could go back, everything would be different now anyway, right?” 

Amelia touched the stem of the small plant, only having just become woody, then gestured to the slightly worn-out pages of the book in Ina’s hand. “What was living and breathing to her then might only exist as a record now, but that’s true of everyone’s pasts. At some point, reminiscing is just longing for a memory, and that’s something none of us can truly revisit.”

“Why do _you_ stay, then, Ame?” Ina cut in, voice faltering a bit. “What anchors you here, when one day all of this,” she gestured around—the sights, the smells, all the idle conversation and the two of them enjoying each other’s company under old incandescent light fixtures—“could share that same fate? When you could go anywhere. Any time.”

In response, Ame simply smiled for a moment. Ina was reminded of how she liked showing her teeth when she smiled. Her eyes were usually weary, but her smile was always bright. It was an expression befitting an owner who had already said too many goodbyes. 

“It’s because I’m longing for the memory I’m making with you right now.” 

The words moved to shed tension off Ina like waves, sweeping away the apprehension and giving way to nothing short of adoration. The priestess felt overwhelmed. She sought out this vibrant, articulate, albeit weathered girl’s hands with her own, as if holding onto a promise. 

And the pot held firm in their embrace. “And Ina...I know Gura feels the same way.”

Ina’s eyes flickered downwards, briefly. “I still need to apologize. For reminding her.” Her thoughts flashed back to the painting from yesterday. 

Ame wanted to roll her eyes a little, but refrained. Even she knew there was a difference between teasing and being rude. “If anything, she probably wants reassurance, Ina.”

The taller girl’s little hair flaps perked up a bit in surprise.

“You know what she was telling me last night? How sad she would be if you left us here to fend for ourselves. She’d probably start getting wasted on Bubba and Mikki’s scraps.” Amelia’s rambunctious snickering was, per usual, extremely infectious. Ina couldn’t help but double down in giggles after thwapping her forehead with the book. 

“Ow, enough!” Ame laughed, shoving the offending article away with her free hand. Smoothly, she settled said hand on Ina’s head, ruffling her hair a bit before moving to cup her cheek. “But honestly, I mean it,” the shorter girl reassured softly, earnestly. “We’d miss you.”

Ina leaned into her touch. “I’d miss you, too.”

A phone started buzzing then, but it wasn’t Ina’s, and the sound didn’t hang heavy and intrusive in the air like it did the other night. Ame moved to fish her cell from her pocket. Briefly, Ina saw what she had listed for the caller ID before she picked up, or at least she thought she did, and it surprised her as much as it brought some embarrassment to her cheeks. 

When Gura’s voice rang out on speaker, she knew.

“Hiya Watson. When are you and Ina coming home for dinner?”

Ame smiled fondly into the receiver, motioning towards the register. 

“We’ll be home soon.”

—

Later that night, Gura snuck into Ina’s bedroom again, the latter’s door being ajar. She wanted to talk, or maybe apologize...she didn’t know what to say, but it was uncharacteristic of her to leave anything hanging for long, and resorting to action rather than planning was how she had always lived her life. Unfortunately, she found Ina already fast asleep, hunched over on her desk in front of her computer setup. 

Gura decided to shelve the conversation for another day, starting to shake the artist awake and suggest moving to her bed, but she accidentally jostled Ina’s mouse in the process, waking up her computer monitor. 

It revealed a different canvas than the one she had been working on yesterday, Gura noticed, squinting. Pictured were the three of them cooking together, reminiscent of their dinner fiasco the night before, which was in itself representative of how their evenings usually went. Full of laughter, a little chaos, and a lot of love. It tugged at the smaller girl’s heartstrings. She noticed the filename, and the words wrapped around her like a hug, or every birthday she’d celebrated in the last hundred years warming her all at once. 

ただいま。

_I’m home._

And that’s all she needed to hear. 

She rolled back Ina’s chair to move in front of her, pulling her up in a princess carry. Ina mumbled sleepily in response, but didn’t protest, only wrapping her arms around the shark girl more tightly, and Gura felt her heart flutter. As she laid the girl onto the sheets, untangling herself from the artist’s limbs, she pressed a kiss to her forehead and mouthed her goodnight with a phrase she had only recently begun to understand, words she was still getting used to holding between her teeth, and close to her heart.

_Welcome home._

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Literally, ただいま means right now/just now. Ame knows.
> 
> —
> 
> anyway do you ever look at someone and wonder, what is going on inside their head? it's metaphors. that's it, that's my everlasting love. oh, and sometimes girls rent out a flat on the weekends ✨💞
> 
> i haven't posted something i've written creatively in a long, long time but i caught brain worms and it's called hololive, so take care and thanks for ingesting my word vomit! 😂 i'll probably continue writing now and then as inspiration hits
> 
> i go by the same handle on twitter, so drop by and say hi if you'd like!


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